21 Today!

At last the sun shone on Lawrence's birthday so we went to the site of his first disastrous (raining and cold) birthday in the UK 15 years ago for a photo shoot.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

I read this World Book Night 2012 gift along with the other members of the Hillside North End Reading Group.

Much Madness is divinest Sense -

To a discerning eye -

Much Sense - the starkest Madness -

'Tis the Majority

In this, as All, prevail -

Assent - and you are sane -

Demur - and you're straight away dangerous -

And handled with a chain - 

                                  Emily Dickinson

Maggie O'Farrell uses this epigraph at the beginning of this novel, first published in 2006.  I either skipped over or ignored it before but now I see how apposite it is.  

Euphemia (Esme) spends 61 years, five months and four days in a mental institution.  She was diagnosed with dementia praecox but her real condition was that she was an inconvenience to her family.  She is released to her great niece, who was unaware of her existence even though she has a photograph of her in her flat, because keeping her has become inconveniently costly to the local authority.  

The story of misunderstanding and revenge is told from three points of view, Esme's and her great niece Iris' in the third person, and the first person ramblings of Kitty, Esme's sister who has Alzheimer's and lives in a nursing home.

I loved this book and got so much more from the second reading.  Its short and written in a very accessible style.  Look out for a copy there are doing the rounds as a World Book Night release.

What's not to like about Cricket?

Pimms? - don't mind if I do.  

At last the sun shone for the first day of the first test - England v S Africa at the Oval.  

Not only did we have a great day's cricket but look at this queue, right out the door, for the men's.

And this blue door behind the man in the blue shirt is the door to the Ladies'.  No queue there through the door or inside.  I thought it was worth a picture.

What did I read on holiday?

Anyone who knows me will know that my idea of a perfect holiday is one with a lot of reading.  Here are the books I chose for Barbados.

A lovely complicated story with lots of humorous elements (sneaking the dog into prohibited places in a backpack and off the cuff kidnapping).

Another appearance by Jackson Brodie that I'm certain we'll see dramatised like its forerunners including Case Histories.

I really enjoyed it and would recommend to anyone going on holiday or staying at home.

Two unrelated Korean babies are adopted by two unrelated and completely different American families.  On the same day they go to the airport to receive the children and they meet.  Without anything in common but the adoption they end up meeting annually for an 'Arrival Day' party.
Its a glimpse into the strange emotional world that the intensity and careful planning for children that childlessness can lead to.  A world that it is very difficult for people who have children without particular prior thought or planning, to completely understand.
Its a good catalyst to tell a story about a group of people with a variety of emotional and cultural baggage who are corralled together to celebrate a strangely surreal and tenuous bond.
Its the third of Anne Tyler's novels I have read and I enjoyed it enough to try another.

I finished this because I had started it but, like other more recent Grisham novels, it lacks the skill of his early books.  It feels like a contractual obligation work.
I wouldn't bother with it unless the only alternative is watching some sporting event on TV or reading mommy porn.

I chose this because it is another book written by my erstwhile neighbour Eva Hanagan who used to live at No 4.  The Heritage Hillside Reading Group read her novel Alice as our first choice and I enjoyed it so much I bought another.  Out of print sadly but there seem to be quite a lot of eBay opportunities to get hold of a copy.
I like her books - not much happens but you meet lovely eccentric characters doing slightly odd things.
... thought Flora, slamming a bowl of watercress in front of him.  A tiny creature like a minuscule lobster waved its legs in frantic protest before it and its supporting leaf disappeared below Fergus's moustache.  
 Her stories are uncomplicated and short but you feel as though you have got to know and understand the characters.  They make very good holiday reads.  

Not everyone's cup of tea but I really like Agatha Christie and it always surprises me that more people don't.
This one has been dramatised several times both for the small screen and radio but the book, as is usually the case, is a more satisfying journey.
An anachronistic comfortable London hotel is frequented by relics from a bygone era that seems so authentically stuck in time that it can't possibly be right.  Of course all is not what it seems and Miss Marple gets to the bottom of the matter.

This is hilarious.  I'm not keen on any activity that could lead to drowning but now that I've been on a short trip on the canal to Camden I think I would like to try a weekend trip a bit further afield on a narrow boat and I will take this with me to read it again.
Three of the least resourceful and smart friends go on a trip for which they are unsuited and ill prepared.

I didn't finish this one, and still haven't.
This is the sort of book you read once to get the bones in your head and then go back and read again at leisure to enjoy it properly.  I'm still at stage one.
Getting to grips with it is complicated by all the characters (and there are quite a lot) all seeming to have the same name.
I'll get back to you when I've read it properly.

The Cliff - dessert

It start off dark but the light comes on after a few seconds.